Sunday, June 21, 2015

Trux with the Tide: Dinotrux Dig the Beach by Chris Gall

It's steamy summer back in the Jurasic jungle, and the Dinotrux are obviously overheated. It's hard to cool down beside a bubbling tar pit and it's not a pretty picture when morph monsters, part dinosaur, part trucks, get grumpy. They need a break.

ONE DAY IN LATE SUMMER TYRANNOSAURUS TRUX LED THE DINOTRUX TO A SECRET BEACH.

THE BREEZES WERE COOL AND WAVES CRASHED OF THE SAND.

The delighted Dinotrux run amok. Craneosaurus cannonballs into the surf. Digasaurus digs himself a hole in the cool sand up to his cab. The rest of the Dinotrux dive in for a cooling swim. But whoa...

"OUT OF THE WATER, DINOTRUX, OR YOU'LL RUST!!"

Back on the beach, the Dinotrux dry out. In fact, the Deliveradons fall asleep in the sun and turn bright red.

TOO BAD THEY FORGOT THE SUNSCREEN!

The rest find their own fun, each in his own way. Scoopasaurus para-sails over the sand, and Rolladon flattens some palms into super-sized surf boards.

Then Tyrannosaurus Trux tries to take charge and get the moto-monsters at work on a group project--Dinotrux-sized sand castles. Things don't go well at first. Rolladon gets over-enthusiastic and rolls over their sand-bucket-shaped walls, and Cementosaurus does his usual thing, dumping a load indiscriminately all over the sand. And while Tyrannosaurs Trux is busy sorting out the chaos, little Scoopasaurus ventures out in the surf and is surrounded by circling megalodons, prehistoric sharks with mouths big enough to swallow a great white like a minnow.

But it's all for one and one for all with the Dinotrux motor pool, and again Tyrannosaurus Trux mounts the rescue, in Chris Gall's latest, Dinotrux Dig the Beach (Little, Brown and Company, 2015). Chris Gall's clever morph-monsters have a day at the beach in this third book in his series.

Blending those kid-pleasing subjects, dinosaurs and big construction equipment, into one herd of mighty monsters is a stroke of brilliance, and kids will get definitely dig Gall's Dinotrux as they take over the seaside in a spoof of water sports and a massive show of oceanside improvement. Gall even brings back his cave family to take over the seaside castle (complete with a school of monster sharks circling the moat) when the Dinotrux vacate their vacation construction project, and all's cool that ends cool in Dinotrux territory.

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Retired after 32+ years as an elementary librarian, I really miss the joy of bringing together the right book with the right reader at the right time. Loving both kids and books equally as I do, perhaps helping children and the adults who care about them find good books through this blog is the next best thing to being there.
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